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Man decapitates daughter for her ‘indecent behavior’

June 19, 2012

Police in Rajasthan, India say they were shocked when a man showed up at a police station holding a bloody human head and sword.

The head was of the man’s daughter Manju Kunwar. It was chopped off because of her “indecent behavior.” The beheading took place on Tuesday in Dengar Ka Guda, a village in Rajsamand District. Villagers said the father, whose shirt was soaked in blood, had carried his daughter’s head through the village and described what he had done to his neighbors.

Kunwar was in her 20s and was living with her parents at the time. She left her husband from an arranged marriage two years ago. She recently began seeing several men which “disgusted” her father, deputy police superintendent Umesh Ojha said. Kunwar eloped with a man two weeks ago and her father forced her to return home on Sunday.

Authorities said her father accused her of acting inappropriately with other men. He accused his daughter of bringing dishonor to the family and making it difficult to find future husbands for her two unmarried sisters. The authorities say Kunwar’s mother is a farmer and that she was working in the fields at the time.

The weeping women lined the road of the village in Rajasthan as a march carried Manju Kanwar’s remains to her funeral pyre. In many north and west Indian villages the women are not allowed to attend the funeral even if they are family members of the deceased.

In India women hold some of the highest positions in society. Women are company CEOs, the president and speakers of the House. But this case highlights another side of India in which women still undergo the consequences of long-held traditions.

India topped this month’s Thomson Reuters Foundation poll as the worst place to be a woman among the top 19 economies in the world. The foundation cited abuse, killings and discrimination on a matchless scale to other nations.